VOSTOK AND VOSKHOD

The
Vostok and Voskhod missions of 1961-1965 continued the series of
Soviet firsts in space. In six missions from 1961 through 1963,
a Vostok ("East") spacecraft carried a cosmonaut into
Earth orbit in successively longer flights.

The
Vostok spacecraft then was modified to hold two or three cosmonauts
and renamed Voskhod ("Sunrise"). Three cosmonauts orbited
aboard Voskhod 1 for a day in October 1964, five months before the
first U.S. two-man Gemini mission. In March 1965, Voskhod 2 achieved
another space spectacular, the first spacewalk, when cosmonaut Aleksei
Leonov ventured outside his orbiting spacecraft.